A Bomb in the Barbies

EROS

If you ever want to understand how what the fuck is wrong with America as a whole, look no further than the entirely unnecessary photoshoots of collegiate sports teams. The Fort Caber website lovingly displays group pictures of the football team as well as individual pictures in which the bastards themselves act macho with their helmets and footballs as if they won't graduate onto office jobs and middle age paunches as they tell everyone who will listen about the days when they were fit and lean out on the football field. But that is beside the point. I am bothering with this shit in the first place because I need to hunt down Mr. Number 20—the rebellious little Scept dealer himself. Turns out that the little shit is Brandon Li, who just so happens to be the son of DEA Agent Li. Well, would you look at that, just the picture of father/son bonding, aren't they?

Brandon Li's jersey number leads me to the football roster. His name leads me to a half dozen social media accounts. His Twitter feed leads me to the party that he is hosting at his daddy's place while the fam is out of town. And here he probably thinks that he is being subtle.

I could have managed it alone, except that Providence decides to tag along. I guess I wouldn't pass up the chance to see perky, little coeds if I was some scruffy fucker in my late forties either. So he tags along. Forgive me for saying, but I don't half mind this. At least, I didn't mind until he decides to open his mouth and let utter bullshit cascade out of it.

"So, what's the deal with you and Kan?" He asks.

"You are actually asking me that?" This is the precise moment to be a royal bitch.

"Well, excuse me for wanting to know why Kan sent in an army to threaten you with a baby doll."

Something about that makes me pause. We're close to Brandon Li's house—more of a mansion, really, because that it what a government job and an adherence to the American Dream adds up to. Half of me wants to tell Providence to shove it; the other half burns to correct him. And finally, I do just that simply because someone else needs to know this.

"He wasn't threatening me," I finally explain. "That was a warning."

"A warning?"

How could I ever explain it to a man born and bred red, white, and blue? Providence could never understand being a little girl in the middle of rural Mexico with two dying parents, a gymnastics scholarship, and a dream. How could he ever understand unless I tell him.

"Back then, the goal was to put Mexico on the Olympic map by challenging the US and Russia in crowd-pleasing events like women's gymnastics and ice skating. Of course, there already were gyms—good ones too—in the cities, but my coach had a different idea. He figures that some itty-bitty rural girls with guts could out train rich girls in the city. I can't say whether he was right or not, but I was a little squirt of a kid when he drove by me walking the seven kilometers back home-"

Mr. Scruffy Pants proceeded to interrupt my heartfelt backstory: "Wait, you used to be a gymnast?"

Right, I forgot about that little girl he likes so much. The college gymnast. That one. Makes me wonder how much this guy thinks he knows about gymnastics.

I ignore him because I literally just said that I did used to be a gymnast and here he is asking dumb clarifying questions for no reason. "I was pretty good, if I do say so myself. Can't say for sure if it was Olympic good. Then my parents got sick—cancer. Everyone within a ten mile radius had something, after all, we were living within walking distance of an unregulated nuclear dumping ground. I was really pretty back then, all innocent and shy. I was also hitting a growth spurt, so I went from being four foot nine and ninety pounds to being five foot five and a hundred thirty pounds with B-cups."